Zara Pulls Shirt From Stores Because People Say It Resembles A Concentration Camp Uniform

The children's striped pajama top featured a yellow six-pointed star on its front. Zara has apologized and pulled the item from its stores.

Fast fashion retailer Zara has pulled a striped top with a six-pointed yellow star decal from its stores after social media users complained it resembled the uniforms worn by Jewish prisoners in concentration camps during World War II.

The shirt was a pajama top meant for children ages three months to three years. Zara claims the star on the front was meant to resemble a sheriff’s badge, inspired by "classic Western films"—the star has the word "sheriff" imprinted on it, but the word wasn’t clear in photos on the retailer’s website. Critics took to social media to point out the resemblance between the top and the uniforms of victims of the Holocaust:

Zara has pulled the shirt from its stores and online outlets, and has apologized profusely in several languages across its social media channels, saying "We honestly apologize, it was inspired by the sheriff’s stars from the Classic Western films and is no longer in our stores."

Zara came under fire for another questionable design choice in 2007: The chain had to pull handbags from their stores after a customer pointed out their pattern featured a swastika.

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Does a fashion line have the right to appropriate images and symbols as it sees fit? What do we mean by images and who controls or owns any image and if one group of people choose to infer a certain meaning upon said shirts who is to say others will think otherwise? Granted it is one thing to respect the memory of war victims but also another thing to respect an individual’s or outlet’s right to express themselves as they see fit and to allow the market to be the final arbiter…or is that off the table?